


The Jedi Who Loved Too Much

by Riverdaughter



Series: 101 other ways to fix or break the galaxy [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, And he better just kill him instead, And he decides that Anakin is probably terrible Sith material, Episode: s05e20 The Wrong Jedi, F/M, Gen, News in the GFFA, One Sheevy's plans goes off the rails, There is more than one wrong jedi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24853072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverdaughter/pseuds/Riverdaughter
Summary: Ahsoka's trial goes sideways when Anakin can't come up with the evidence to exonerate her. Good thing he usually has a back up plan...
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: 101 other ways to fix or break the galaxy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742038
Comments: 108
Kudos: 257





	1. Anakin

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I have a bunch of WIP but this wouldn't stop bugging me. And honestly I'm genuinely surprised that I have never read a fic that goes this direction with this episode. So I had to write my own...

He has nothing, no witness or evidence that anyone besides Ahsoka had been involved in Leta’s death. Only his own unshakable conviction that she is innocent, and he knows well enough that that will not help her in the least. Why when it truly matters, when the people he loves most are at stake, why when he wants so desperately to help is he so terribly helpless?

He’d give his life to save Ahsoka’s…

And suddenly he is struck by a solution to this problem, he has no witness, no evidence, no culprit unless he could provide himself as all three. He hates lying and Ahsoka would probably never forgive him, but she’d be alive and free, and it is tearing him apart already to see her frightened and alone. He can’t watch her die, again. If the Council had believed that Ahsoka, who is brilliant and brave and a wonderful jedi could do this surely they won’t have trouble believing that Anakin, (who is widely considered to be an _unconventional_ at best, who can’t control his emotions, who tinkers with mechanics) can be the criminal.

It will only cost what is left of his reputation, the trust of those few who still believe in him and the anguish of his wife…

“Ahsoka Tano, this tribunal finds…”

Anakin Skywalker weighs his reputation, his status as a jedi knight, _himself_ against the life of his padawan and his padawan wins without a contest.

“that on the charges of treason, conspiracy and murder…”

“She’s innocent!” he calls out a touch of the force carrying his voice across the chamber, _I’m sorry Ahsoka, I’m sorry Obi-Wan, I don’t have a choice, please forgive me Padmé_ “I cannot watch my padawan condemned for crimes that she had no part in,” _better make this good Skywalker_ , “crimes that I alone am guilty of.”

He can see Tarkin gobbling at him, the disappointed look the Chancellor sends in his direction, the stunned horror on Obi-Wan’s face, the contempt on Mace Windu’s, the anguish in Padmé’s eyes. He looks down not daring to look Ahsoka in the eyes as he feels his hands wrenched behind his back, he can’t see the betrayal, the anger, the broken trust that he has put there.

He wonders suddenly if they’ll even have an investigation, what more do they need than the confession of a convenient scapegoat? He’d known in his heart that the guilty verdict would guarantee a death sentence. Will they let him say goodbye or will they just drag him away and get it over with?

Even if they investigate, he knows as much about this case as he possibly can, he’ll be able to provide enough details to convince them, he is sure of it. He wonders absently what the true murderer thinks of this mad plan of his, are they angry or relieved that they have netted a jedi knight rather than the padawan that they had originally ensnared.


	2. Padmé

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Padmé makes plans for war...

Padmé knows what her reckless, noble, _fool_ of a husband is going to do the moment that he opens his mouth. And she wants nothing more than to stop him, to silence the damning confession before it can be heard, to scream at Anakin to not throw away his life like this.

But he isn’t throwing it away, he is laying down gladly for someone he loves. And she cannot stop him from making that choice. She will not prevent him from fulfilling his oath to protect his padawan, with his life if necessary. She’s sent him away to war before, to hopeless battles and endless sieges. She will stand beside him in this battle as well, and if…if it is his last than she will make sure that they both fight until they can fight no longer.

She tries to meet his eyes as the tribunal dissolves into chaos. He is looking down, silent and resigned as they chain his arms behind his back. How often has she seen him bound, captured, wounded? But never like this, never by the Republic he has given blood, sweat and tears to protect.

This must be how Ahsoka felt this whole time, as though her whole world had dissolved around her into something unrecognizable. At least Anakin had made his own choice, he has been condemned out of his own mouth, not by some shadowy criminal. She tells herself that that makes it better, that Anakin has at least that facsimile of control.

It doesn’t make _her_ feel better as she sees the hard looks of the Council, as she watches her husband dragged away.

She needs to focus, to come up with some sort of defense strategy. How is she supposed to protect him? He’d confessed to treason and terrorism and murder before scores of witnesses, before senators, jedi and the chancellor himself. Even if she could convince him to recant, it would do nothing.

Unfortunately, he is also a far better target than Ahsoka. A well-known strategist, a brilliant mechanic with a disreputable background, who is known to be a bit of a wild-card. Maybe she can get him to plead temporary insanity?

She needs to see him, to make sure that he isn’t being mistreated. She finds a speeder and heads towards the Republic Military Prison. She is half-way there before she considers that their marriage will likely come out when the investigations start. Even if by some miracle it doesn't, Anakin’s past is almost certainly going to be back to haunt him. She knows Tarkin, and she knows he’ll bring it up, the slavery, his presence at the first battle of the war, every unconventional decision, every capture, every defeat.

She hopes he knows what he signed up for, this isn’t just taking a blaster bolt for a friend. Her intensely private husband’s life is going to be examined and shredded before his eyes. If this goes badly, like she thinks it will than this will be it.

If worse comes to worse, she’ll break him out of prison herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing that is (I think) overdone in stories is the get-really-mad-at-person-who-has just-done-something-heroic trope. I think Padmé is mad at him, but she's also worried and proud of him. And she understands, she met him doing something dangerous and heroic, she knew exactly what she was getting when she married him. 
> 
> Anyways...  
> Ahsoka's pov tomorrow.
> 
> Also, just thought I'd check and see if anyone is interested in beta-reading for me? Thanks, your all the best!


	3. Ahsoka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka is set free and has to come to terms with how and why.

Ahsoka had known what the verdict would be. She is alone, frightened and in danger from the very government that she has fought for. Her last hope of rescue is dwindling by the nanosecond, she trusts Anakin but even he cannot conjure up a murderer out of nothing.

And then for one glorious moment she hears him, clear and confident, declaring her innocent and she knows that he has saved her again. That she shouldn’t have doubted him, that he has somehow pulled off another of his miracles. He’s got to be running out of luck by now.

“I cannot watch my padawan condemned for crimes that she had no part in,” he says and she feels a flash of foreboding, something is wrong.

She can feel the tension running through him as he continues, sorrow, determination, _love_ … “crimes that I alone am guilty of.” he says and Ahsoka falters against the rising tide of chaos.

There is a fleeting thought that perhaps he is guilty, she can feel shame and remorse from him but it isn’t focused on the bombing, it is centered around herself mostly but also on Obi-Wan and Senator Amidala?

No, she can’t believe this of him. Anakin had had no more to do with the bombing than she had. She twists around desperate to see him, to try to decipher what sort of ridiculous plan this is. But his proud carriage is resigned and passive, he offers no resistance to the cuffs and she nearly snarls. What is he thinking, does he truly believe that he can somehow take her place? That she will let him?

But if she says something now, it will not remove suspicion from him. It will simply bring her back under scrutiny, she needs to tread cautiously.

Surely the Council won’t let this farce continue…an insignificant padawan is one thing, a jedi knight who is famous across the galaxy, their own child of prophecy. They won’t throw him to the gundarks will they?

The Council members’ faces are cold and hard and she realizes suddenly that they won’t lift a finger to help Anakin Skywalker. And for one terrible moment, she wishes that she truly had set off that bomb, not in a side hanger but in the Council chambers.

She hastily pushes it away, trying to tame her anger. The saber is in her hand now, if she wants to save Anakin, she needs to find the true culprit and fast.

But he has put himself in such a terrible position. Even if she finds the true traitor, that confession will haunt him. Her trust in the Order has already been broken. She doesn’t think the jedi will take him back after this, and the GAR probably won’t either. And if she can find the culprit what will their confession count for? The fact that Anakin has already lied will make even a repentant bomber seem less convincing. Perhaps, they’ll all be fugitives in the end.

She should let Bariss know that she is alright, and she needs to gather up her few belongings from the Temple. And meet with Senator Amidala. She is a politician, maybe she’ll have a better idea for how to deal with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview of the next chapter:
> 
> He tries to imagine years on endless years of dealing with constant possible resurgences of light in the boy. The annoyance of keeping him in his place. Yes, Vader slaves are a necessary part of an Empire. No, Vader you cannot kill Jabba the Hutt. Put the Admiral down Vader, he is absolutely right that we don’t accept alien scum into our navy. Even if they are brilliant pilots. 
> 
> Yes, I totally head canon that Sidious has had that name picked for years...


	4. Palpatine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Palpatine is his usual self, ie. evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not very long I'm afraid but these are all pretty short chapters.

Palpatine cannot believe his ears. How can the boy even consider throwing away all his power, his abilities, the life that Palpatine has so carefully prepared for him? For the first time in over a decade his plans are not unfolding as he wishes.

They will all pay for this.

Anakin especially, how dare he after all the time and effort Palpatine has invested in him? He’d tried to do the boy a favor, tried to do away with one of his _many_ inexcusable attachments and this is his gratitude. Sidious has spent years laughing that his vain attempts to fit in with the jedi, at Kenobi’s fruitless struggle to break Anakin of his affections.

He is not laughing anymore.

Several of the reasons that get him into trouble with the jedi are equally unattractive in a Sith. He is no longer sure that he even wants Anakin as his apprentice…Obviously, his blasted protective instincts which in other instances might have been useful run far too deep. He had planned to use them, to cut them away one by one leaving Anakin alone in the darkness but clearly their hold is too strong. Sidious can suddenly see it, his apprentice throwing away his power, his anger, his connection to the Dark for the sake of love.

He tries to imagine years on endless years of dealing with constant possible resurgences of light in the boy. The annoyance of keeping him in his place. Yes, Vader slaves are a necessary part of an Empire. No, Vader you cannot kill Jabba the Hutt. Put the Moff down Vader, he is absolutely right that we don’t accept alien scum into our navy. Even if they are brilliant pilots. And Force forbid, one of the boy’s friends actually escapes, or that he finds new ones. He’d have to keep constant watch to make sure that he doesn’t find any cheeky convicts, wise-cracking smugglers or meddling droids.

No, he wants a proper apprentice, not a sniveling wimp who’d rather condemn himself than watch his apprentice die. What sort of future Sith Lord does that? All that delicious power wasted on _love._

Disgusting.

At least this way, Anakin has given him the perfect excuse to destroy him. The Jedi Council will not dare defend him and all his other allies will surely abandon him after this. He muses on the irony, the Jedi have handed him the one thing that stands in his way, to use or dispose of as he wishes.

It is almost beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plead guilty to all the foreshadowing (is it still foreshadowing if it happens in a different timeline?) 
> 
> I'm curious to see if anyone gets the allusions...


	5. Rex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex hears some disturbing gossip among the shinies...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I really love having chapters written in advance....
> 
> I don't know how I have managed to write a story about Anakin in which only the first chapter is from his point of view....I guess this is as much about how the other characters perceive him and this whole situation as it is about him. 
> 
> I'm still not entirely sure how Mando'a works (I can write whole sentences in Sindarin but I'm pretty new to this language) so hopefully I didn't screw it up to much. Vod means brother/sister/family from what I understand.

Rex is not in the chamber when Ahsoka is exonerated, but his relief is overwhelming when he sees her walking out, unguarded and clearly free again. It is odd, he thinks that the general is not with her. Given how worried Skywalker has been, Rex would have guessed that he'd seize the opportunity to (cling) stick around and make sure that she was alright.

Ahsoka doesn’t not turn and greet any of them, but Rex figures that she is still having trouble with the fact that they chased her across Coruscant. Even though they both know that the 501st had only been trying to find her before the Coruscant guard. He does not blame her for being wary, though he does feel a little hurt. But all will be well once again, he is sure of it.

He does not realize that all is not well, that it might never be well again until several hours later.

A couple of the shinies are whispering nervously in a corner.

“…the High Council doesn’t trust'm I’ve heard,” he hears as he walks past.

“that doesn’t mean anything,” a more experienced trooper named Comet says rather loudly, “Skywalker is good people. He’s vod, as much as the rest of us.”

“Is there a problem here trooper?” Rex asks more critically than usual, he is not feeling very tolerant of gossip at the moment.

One of the shinies shakes his head, “We were just wondering about the rumors?” he says, slightly subdued, “Do you think they’ll give us another jedi?”

“Commander Tano was found innocent,” Rex says sternly, “Scuttlebutt is all well and good but if I hear another…”

“Not the Commander,” squeaks a shiny with a tattoo of an odd-looking fish, “The General, since he was arrested for the bombing…”

“Arrested,” Rex repeats, “That’s enough beer for you…” he looks pointedly at the shiny.

“Narwhale, sir,” the shiny tells him, “It’s not a rumor sir, it’s all over the holonews. General Skywalker confessed to the bombing in front of the whole court.”

And Rex has sudden and terrible knowledge for why his general hadn’t been with Ahsoka after the trial, why Ahsoka had ignored them, why he had seen Senator Amidala heading off towards the RMP with a fierce eyes and a sad smile.

He doesn’t for second consider that the story might be true, even if Skywalker had bombed something (which Rex wouldn’t put past him if there was some good reason), he would never have come so close to letting Ahsoka take the fall. The general is many things, but he is neither a liar nor a coward. And he cares far to much for Ahsoka to dangle her like bait. No, Rex can guess what happened. Skywalker hadn’t found enough evidence to get his padawan off and had thus neatly inserted himself as the villain of the story.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions (like being bunged off of a cliff with little warning) Rex wishes he had been assigned a different jedi. Usually, he thinks about Krell and difference in the casualty lists between the 501st and other battalions, and the way that the boy-soldier that leads him remembers the name of each and every man lost under his watch. He doesn’t even bother this time, he has never been prouder to serve under his reckless, compassionate, fearless jedi than he is this day.

Now he just needs to break him out of prison before he gets himself killed.

If the Republic thinks that they are going to execute the five-o-first’s jedi, then the five-o-first and their captain are going to have something to say about it. 


	6. Obi-Wan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan comes to a realization...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I really want to write a series of fake articles from Galactic News Network and the University of Corellia, Journal of Science and Technology...

Obi-Wan _cannot_ believe his ears or his eyes for that matter. Coruscant’s obnoxious news cycle has ramped up into overdrive. And the favorite topic of the day is not something that Obi-Wan appreciates. 

**_Skywalker Expelled! A Killer in Jedi’s Robes_** screams the cover of the _Coruscant Daily_. The _Galactic News Network_ was even worse, with a list of rumors and rampant speculation under the slightly less lurid headline **_Anakin Skywalker Confesses…_**

The _Republic Military Times_ has been diligently deleting all references to victories Anakin has been involved in, or just editing out his involvement where necessary. 

Even the _University of Corellia, Journal of Science and Technology_ has been retracting articles that Anakin wrote years ago, everything from hyper-drive improvements to a tongue-in-cheek list of _**Ten Ways to Not Crash Your Brand New Starship**_ that he and Ahsoka had submitted for a humor edition. 

And those are semi-respectable news sources, the gossip flimsies and holosheets are even worse. Obi-Wan snorts just slightly. If they were to be believed, Anakin was secretly married, an undercover Separatist, an actual droid in human form, or possibly Dooku’s secret grandson.

And if the flimsies weren’t bad enough every major Holonet channel and quite a few of the minor ones have been adding their two credits into the mix. Jocasta Nu has been sending him dirty looks over the fact that her precious researchers have been reassigned to deal with the fallout. As though it is somehow his fault that Anakin has made a villain out of himself.

Perhaps it is.

He always had joked that Anakin would come to a bad end someday.

Suddenly disgusted by his own taste in jokes, he tries to avoid the flood of memories.

“You’ll be the death of me…” he says slightly mocking at Anakin’s horrified eyes.

That time he’d told Anakin that he was part-machine and been relentlessly clear that it wasn’t a compliment1 and then his foolish, _brave_ ex-padawan had gone and lost his arm to machinery saving Obi-Wan’s life. 

The grief in Anakin’s eyes as he stood above his master’s still body, the hurt in them as he admitted that it was his idea to keep the secret from him. Not his proudest moment he thinks regretfully. But many of his interactions with his wayward student have been less than satisfying. From the moment that they had met and Obi-Wan, young, insecure and even slightly jealous had jokingly brushed off the younger boy as a pathetic life-form.

The war had oddly enough improved their relationship, something had changed in Anakin around Geonosis as though he had found another outlet for some of his ridiculously intense focus. Obi-Wan has his suspicions, but he is far too fond of the status quo to make waves about it. Mostly he is relieved, Anakin is no longer his responsibility and no longer hovers around him in his peculiar pursuit of a father figure.

They are equals now, he tells himself. Fellow-knights and fellow-generals and Anakin is welcome to fight his battles as he wishes, to train his own padawan, to follow his dream of visiting hundreds of planets.

He’s never fully understood Anakin and he knows it. All that drive and passion, so antithetical to what a jedi should be. Obi-Wan has his own drive, his small pleasures, his pursuit of excellence. And Anakin overwhelms him, everything is bigger, brighter, louder around his friend.

He knows it isn’t Anakin’s fault that the Force bends and flares around him but it is disconcerting and distracting, and there is a small part of Obi-Wan, a part that he isn’t proud of that wonders why everything should come so easily to Anakin. Why Anakin should have been chosen as a padawan before he’d even entered the jedi, why the Force runs through his veins like blood, why he can be a master of his saber form despite a ten-year handicap.

He tries not to imagine Anakin now, self-confessed traitor in some Republic holding-cell. Anakin who so hates being confined. He’d been born to walk the stars, and all Obi-Wan’s efforts to tether him to earth, to tame the wild desert child he’d been given have come to this.

A reputation in tatters, an outcast from the Order, an ignoble end.

_His padawan saved, the sacrifice of a jedi knight, no greater love…_

And everything else stops mattering, because that’s what it comes down to. Love, the compassion that the jedi claim so dear but seldom honor.

_Than to lay down one’s life for a friend…_

Because that is what Anakin is after all, a friend, a brother even and Obi-Wan Kenobi loves him.

Now he just has to get in on whatever Ahsoka and Rex are surely planning.

1Star Wars Republic, Issue 47 (for those who are curious)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is probably the chapter I'm most nervous about. Obi-Wan is tricky, he loves Anakin but he also thinks he shouldn't and it screws up how he sees both Anakin and himself. This is the turning -point for him, when he decides that Anakin is more important to him than the Order that abandoned Ahsoka, than the Republic that is planning on executing the boy that he watched grow up. 
> 
> Hopefully, I've managed to capture some of that. As usual, he is a terribly unreliable narrator when it comes to feelings/emotions/Anakin
> 
> I imagine holosheets are the GFFA's tabloids...


	7. Bariss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka tells Bariss the good and bad news. Bariss considers the conundrum of Anakin Skywalker and her own actions.

Bariss isn’t sure how to feel. She’d had a strange moment of both relief and terror when she heard that Ahsoka had been released. Relief that she would not be responsible for Ahsoka’s death after all, terror that someone had figured it out.

Accused or not, living with the consequences of her sedition are more traumatizing than she had expected. But it isn’t until Ahsoka comes running in and hugs her that she realizes just what sort of hell she has made for herself.

“They cleared your name!” she tells Ahsoka, her happiness not entirely fake, “This is wonderful.”

“It’s a nightmare,” Ahsoka says unexpectedly, “Anakin…Anakin confessed to the bombing in my place.”

And Bariss rocks back stunned, of all the jedi save for Ahsoka to have gotten tangled up in this web of lies, Anakin Skywalker is the worst possible outcome. He frightens her sometimes, bright and fiery and a clarion call in the music of the force rather than gently plucked strings of the rest of the jedi, like there is quicksilver rather than blood in his veins.

But he’d saved her life once, with Ahsoka’s help. Held out hope when even her own master had given up, when _Bariss_ herself had given up. He is dangerous, and confusing and kind and now his blood is on her hands as much as the blood of Leta and her husband and everyone in that hanger.

She knows more than anyone else what he has given up, exactly how innocent he is. And yet, to save Ahsoka’s life…

She tries to imagine Master Luminara doing something like this and nearly chokes. No, Luminara would have stood aside and said to trust in the Force. Bariss thinks that Anakin trusts the Force, most of the time anyways…but he believes in helping it along. And he has taught Ahsoka to do the same, she thinks of all the times that Ahsoka’s stubbornness has brought them safe and sound home to the Temple.

She truly does believe that the jedi have lost their way. Skywalker is symbol of both what is best about the jedi and what is worst. He is compassionate, clever, willing to risk his life to save a thousand strangers or one dear friend. But he is also unpredictable and warlike, with a flair for battle that merely highlights how they have fallen from peacekeepers to soldiers. He is a jedi no longer she imagines, just another abandoned soldier. If the Council had expelled Ahsoka, there is no way that they’d cling to Skywalker and his unconventional ways.

How strange and sad and fitting that he should now be the victim of her defiance.

No, Skywalker is on his own in the unforgiving clutches of the Republic and Bariss realizes suddenly that she wishes she could help. She looks away from where she has hidden Ventress’ lightsabers and tries to comfort Ahsoka.

The more she thinks about it, the more that this feels wrong. Anakin may be a warrior rather than the jedi that he ought to be, but it was not him that blew up civilians. Is she truly any different now, she has made her point, but has she also become exactly what she is fighting?

Maybe there is something she can do, even something little, that won’t give her away. Something to ease her conflicting emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, Bariss thinks a little more calmly when she isn't fighting Ahsoka's irate master. On the other hand she's going to be dealing with an irate Ahsoka if she doesn't 'fess up soon.


	8. R2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> R2 investigates, puts down a droid panic and takes charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I'm just going to say right upfront that I know very little about coding. So anyone who does know coding, forgive me and chalk it up to things being a little different in the gffa. R2 has also picked up some organic habits from Anakin so he uses words like "contemplate" occasionally. 
> 
> Also R2 has two names for most people, for instance "pilot-who-walks-in-the-sky" is his full name or descriptor for Anakin, but he calls him SKY-1 for short. (He calls Tarkin shriveled-face-who-is-cruel)

His pilot-who-walks-in-the-sky has been gone far too long. There is a glitch somewhere, R2 is sure of it. He should have retrieved snipes-the-fierce-little-one from the Republic’s anti_virus protocols already. R2 knows that she has not been corrupted, her operating software is the same as it has always been.

Everyone else’s systems seem to have been bugged. And except for SKY-1 and his queen-who-saves-people they all seem to have inadequate firewalls. The one-who-does-not-like-flying might be fighting off the virus but R2 isn’t sure if his anti-virus software will be able to beat it.

R2 is cautious around OB1-K, but SKY-1 is attached to him so R2 leaves him alone.

Their operating systems are linked somehow by the Force, similar to the way that SKY-1 and TA-N0 are linked. But their cords are always getting tangled and sending each other incomplete messages. It is a frustrating problem that R2 has observed in many organics, even between QU-3N and SKY-1, who are remote-linked through a W3D server. According to the linking program if one of them crashes the other will crash too.

R2 refuses to think that either will crash, ever. Of course, SKY-1 needs a better surge-protector and has been fried many times but TA-N0 and OB1-K have always helped repair the parts of him that R2 cannot, which is everything but his right arm. R2 cannot understand why they haven’t just upgraded him against shocks the way that SKY-1 upgrades R2.

Perhaps it is not something that organics are capable of. Maybe C3PO knows, while very strange he is certainly a font of irrelevant information.

He is contemplating flying back to QU-3N’s dwelling when several of temple mouse-droids start whining. To his everlasting disgust the panic spreads, from the mouse-droids, to the maintenance droids and at that point there is no stopping it.

[QUERY//: WHY SO MUCH NOISE?] he beeps at one of the other astromechs.

[ANSWER//: SKY-1 IN CUSTODY OF REPUBLIC ANTI_VIRUS PROTOCALS///OFFLINE SINCE 15:00 CST]

R2 shrieks his denial at R6-D1. They already have TA-N0, if SKY-1 is gone too than everyone’s operating systems are in worse condition then he had considered. But it does explain the noise and the panic. SKY-1 has been a favorite since the day that he arrived, if he is offline than every none-organic in the Temple is likely glitching.

[SKY-1 REPLACED TA-N0] R6 tells him and R2 starts suspecting the truth.

[VOLUME DOWN] he beeps authoritatively, and everything quiets a little. It is handy that they all know that he and SKY-1 are close.

He plugs into the nearest data-port and inputs his search parameters. He has never tried searching SKY-1 like this before, if the need weren’t so dire it might be interesting to see what appears.

* * *

path?SKYWALKER_ANAKIN=GAR&REPUBLIC_OFFICIAL_DATABASE&JEDI_ARCHIVES=[COMBAT,TRIAL,RMP,BIOGRAPHICAL_INFO,MENTIONS_OF ]

* * *

  
There is so much information that it takes R2 over an hour to just download all the data and it will take even longer to index it all.

He goes straight to the highest priority items. His pilot-who-walks-in-the-sky, who is always moving is being held in the highest security cell at the RMP and there is already an unsigned order from the Chancellor’s office dated two weeks in the future to crash his operating system and permanently fry his chassis.

R2 rocks back and forth in distress. They have so little time to retrieve SKY-1 and save QU-3N from crashing as well. He needs more, there are several heavily encrypted folders from the same office that are filed under both SKYWALKER and a designation that he has never read before, VADER_DARTH. Perhaps when he has more time, he and SKY-1 can hack them.

For moment he settles on the schematics of the RMP and starts running through his most updated infiltration programing. Now he needs to make contact with QU-3N, TA-N0 and maybe OB1-K. Discreetly, he gives parts of the plan to various of the most secure droids in the Temple.

[QUERY//: INCLUDE RX-67 AND LEGION 501?] boops R6.

R2 knocks his grappling hook on his casing. He is going to need several oil baths before this is over.

[ANSWER//: [YES] MAKE CONTACT WITH LEGION 501 AND RX-67://MUST UPDATE QU-3N AND TA-N0]

[MAY YOUR WIRES NEVER CROSS] R6 beeps cheerfully in goodbye.

[MAY YOUR FIREWALL STAY STRONG] R2 gives the standard reply and he sets off to find TA-N0 and QU-3N. They have SKY-1 to retrieve and hid away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, R-2's majorly confused about how Anakin and Padme's marriage vows work. I can't seem him going tamely in the service of the Organas' without hunting down Anakin unless he thinks he's dead. So he's under the impression that when one "crashes" the other does too. 
> 
> And I don't think I fully appreciated how much I love R2 until I tried writing him. Having him consider that Anakin needs a surge-protector is possibly the most fun I have ever had writing...anything.


	9. Anakin (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin finds himself in a great deal of trouble. In other news, the financial future of space-archaeology is being funded by a Sithlord...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So confession time...I had to move out of my apartment on July 1st and things have been interesting for the last two months or so. I also foolishly re-read parts of the Silmarillion so my brain has been jumping back and forth between Finrod fighting Sauron and Anakin helping Ahsoka. 
> 
> The upshot is that I have barely been able to write anything for months and am now up to my ears in work and art classes so it'll probably still be slow going. But it is _going _...__

Anakin isn’t entirely sure what he expected to happen after he has been dragged out of courtroom and loaded onto a transport. He’d panicked hearing the verdict being read and with that peculiar clarity that comes of seeing your life boil down to individual moments he had known what he had to do.

He’s not sure if they will actually try to investigate him or if they’ll take his word for it. Back on Tatooine, Watto’s word had been law (whether guilty or not) and above him Jabba the Hutt had done as he pleased. His courts had mostly consisted of Jabba eating paddy frogs and watching people he disliked be torn apart by his favorite dangerous pet.

The Jedi of course had been better than Jabba but their rules and the consequences of breaking them have always confused Anakin. It always seemed to be him that ended up punished whether or not he had been aggressive or defensive. Perhaps, there was some unwritten rule that he missed out knowing because he came too late. He’s never dared ask anyone about the possibility.

He’d given them enough before he was pulled away to thoroughly implicate himself in both the bombing and allowing Ahsoka to be tried. He can only hope that Ahsoka knows that he was lying, that he’d never let her take the fall for him like that.

The Coruscant guards have been silent and grim, and Anakin can practically taste the betrayal that they feel in the air around him. He doesn’t know many of them, but Rex is friends with a couple and he can only imagine how angry they must be. When they arrive at the Republic Military Prison he has to keep avoiding the memories of Ahsoka’s escape that ambush him.

She is safe and far away from here, he tells himself over and over again. He must start saying it out loud because they notice.

“Quiet!” barks one of the guards and Anakin wonders what his name is. If he knows Rex or Jesse or Tup, if he is angry with Anakin because he had a friend who died in the hanger or if he is always angry. They’re supposed to be angry with him he reminds himself. He is a Separatist now, a traitor, a murderer, these are the man tasked with keeping the Republic safe, he’d be disappointed if they weren’t angry.

He wonders vaguely if he should start spiting Dookuesque threats, but he’s never been a very good actor and Padmé will probably shoot him if he digs himself any deeper into this mess.

They don’t take him straight to a cell as he expected but drag him off into the increasingly dim depths of the prison. He wonders just how old this prison is as the lighting tapers off, the lifts become decrepit and security cameras disappear. He’s beginning to feel legitimately worried when they stop in front of an eerily clean door on what (if Anakin hasn’t missed his count) is the 400th level below the surface.

“Here he is Korin,” says the guard on the right, his armor is painted a slightly more orange-red than iss typical Anakin notices before looking at the person they have brought him too. Korin runs intelligent brown eyes over Anakin who tries not to shift uncomfortably, there is something almost greedy about the way he is assessing him.

“Ah, the Jedi,” he says, lingering over the last word, “The Chancellor informed me about him. I have exactly we need right over here.” And he wanders off towards a sort of monolith that from what Anakin can tell is made of alternating stacks of flimsi, scratched datapads and mechanical parts with ancient looking symbols carved into them.

“Now, where did it go, hmmm, maybe next to that article on Vogras Vos,” he shifts something and the tower swayes alarmingly, “no, over by that replica of the Farkiller maybe…”

Anakin is tempted to laugh by the time that he straightens up, “Boop!” Korin yells, “Did you take the Massassi cuffs, darling?” 

A little girl, maybe four years old at the very most toddles out from behind the mess with something clinking around her wrists. She’d be cute Anakin thinks, soft black hair framing her chubby face if it weren’t for the dread that rolls through him at the sight of her unwieldy bracelets. The Force is screaming at him, to run, to get far, far away from a little girl with big brown eyes and whatever she is holding.

“Chelli, I need these,” Korin says almost kindly, “What have I said about borrowing my artifacts?”

“Don’t take the shiny things,” Chelli lisps back and Kori turns his unnerving focus away from her and back to Anakin.

He can’t help it, he shivers just a little and notices that it suddenly feels very cold. He’s used to being stared at, he stood on slave blocks as a toddler, before the Jedi High Council as a child, in front of an army as a young man. This is not a look that he is familiar with, it doesn’t even feel like Korin has noticed that he is a living, breathing being. He looks at Anakin the way that Master Nu looks at a rare book that she has added to her collection or the way Chancellor Palpatine looks at his latest art acquisition.

Which suddenly reminds him that the Chancellor has ordered him here and he wonders why? He can’t quite feel betrayed, because it was he that stood there and claimed to have committed treason against Republic that the Chancellor protects but it still hurts.

“Hold him,” Korin says fishing the glittering bracelets out of the girl’s hands and Anakin nearly protests because he has been a model prisoner so far. He hasn’t tried to escape even once for fear that it might somehow reflect back on Ahsoka. The guards tighten their grip as Korin snaps one of the cuffs closed around his left wrist.

And everything stops.

He can feel himself sagging in the grip of the guards and the room wheeling and turning around him as Chelli gives a faint cry of alarm but that is vague and foggy as he floats away on a current of nothingness. It is terribly quiet, everything that hovers in the back of his mind, the stars trilling faintly in their orbits, the pull of gravity against the repulsers that fill Coruscant, the touch of space and time warping around the planet, it is all gone. The things he does notice, the constant pressure of billions of minds, the well-spring of light at the Temple, the faint sparkle of Ahsoka and Padmé and Obi-Wan have blinked out like they never were. He is alone, perhaps more alone than he has ever been in his life and he almost weeps for the loss.

When he comes too, Korin is looking down at him with a great deal of interest and very little pity. His glove has been stripped away and the other cuff has been secured around the join where his cybernetic meets his flesh arm.

“What, what did you do to me?” he asks muzzily and uncaring of his dignity. _He should have run when the Force told him too, escaped through one of the seven possible routes he had noticed on the way in_.

_But he couldn’t, if he runs they’ll just take Ahsoka again. He is sure of it._

“I had theorized,” says Korin with a scholarly air, “that the Massassi cuffs would induce a significant reaction in any force-sensitive. But you are something else entirely, your heart stopped for just a moment you know.”

Anakin didn’t know, but he can hear it now beating fast and panicked in a way it never has for battle. It is too bright and the guards’ hands are heavy and painful and he is so cold.

“I don’t…I’ve been in force-suppressors before,” he tries to say, “Why? The Chancellor, he knew what it would do to me, where did you. Why?” the words come off heavy and lagging, and he trips over some of consonants like he is once again a child struggling to speak basic.

Korin doesn’t answer and he wakes up in a bland white cell with no windows and those evil cuffs burning into his flesh as though they are sucking the life out of his veins. His hands are held in front of him to the table and it takes all his hard won control keep his face blank and serene when the door opens and Tarkin, smiling faintly lets himself in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Korin and Chelli are not OCs... and I'm imagining Korin's research as indecipherable Daniel Jackson style piles of stuff...


End file.
